


It's Too Late For Holy Water Now

by tangerinabina_de_archanea



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe- Vampire and Hunter, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, F/M, Hunter!Niles, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Blood, References to Depression, References to Suicide, Sort Of, Vampire!Emmeryn, because it's niles and everything he says is an implication FLKJSLFJSDF, me making the first thing i post for my rarepair otp a vampire au is so on brand FLJDSLFJSDKLJF, more tags to come as i continue, vampire grandparents marth and caeda raising the ylissean trio is my jam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-04 10:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20469308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangerinabina_de_archanea/pseuds/tangerinabina_de_archanea
Summary: Three years ago, Niles of the Hunter's Guild vanished while pursuing a wandering vampire.Three years ago, Niles met the love of his life.





	1. Night

**Author's Note:**

> Done from this prompt list on tumblr: https://reverie-writes.tumblr.com/post/186189789386/sleeping-at-last-song-lyric-writing-prompts

It had long been a rumor in the Hunter’s Guild that Niles was not dead. They had mourned him as if he was, and picked up their tools and carried on in the hunt, but none felt quite comfortable with the idea that he was well and truly gone. True, he had never returned, but neither had the wandering female vampire he had been sent to hunt over three years ago. If he had killed her, why hadn’t he come back? If she had killed him, why then had she disappeared? There were other possibilities, but none of the Hunter’s Guild entertained them for very long. He couldn’t have simply turned traitor and run off with a vampire, they thought. He couldn’t have.

As it turns out, that was exactly what he did. 

* * *

The tavern was crowded and noisy at night, as usual. It was nearly midnight, but still the patrons came and went, roaring with laughter at bawdy jokes and singing even raunchier songs. Ale was passed around freely, as were plates of food, laden heavily with roasted meats dripping with grease, bread softened by heat, boiled potatoes and cabbage, and savory puddings slathered with gravy. Almost everyone was joining in the ruckus, whether it be vocally with shouts and laughter or physically with punches and dancing.

The two exceptions to this general rule were seated in a corner, a man and a woman keeping to themselves and staying in the shadows. Both wore cloaks, their heavy hoods pulled up and obscuring their faces. Their voices were hushed, and almost drowned out in the din, but they could hear each other perfectly well. Only the man had food, similar to the fare served to the other customers, but seemed more interested in his conversation partner than his dinner.

With his free hand, his right, he held her left, lightly rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. A golden band glinted on her ring finger, matching the one on his, shining in the light as he pushed his food around with his fork. She leaned forward to murmur something, the twin golden curls hanging out of her hood shifting from the movement, and he smiled, tilting his head a little, before leaning towards her and giving her a kiss.

Eventually, he finished his food and the woman paid for it. The bartender subconsciously shied away from her touch as the gold clinked into their hand, and the two were gone as if they had never been there. They mounted one of the many horses tethered outside the tavern, a brilliant white mare, and rode quietly out of the town, with the only sound being the snap in the air of the woman’s cape as she sat behind her husband, her arms wrapped around his waist and her head resting on his shoulder. Even the horse’s hooves were silent.

Once, during their ride, her head tilted toward his neck and she deeply inhaled as her hood finally fell and flew back, freeing her hair to stream out behind them like a golden ribbon. His hood was already down, his snowy white hair, drawn back into a messy ponytail, shining like silver in the moonlight. He laughed quietly as he felt her touch, and said something that was lost to the wind, but not before she heard it. She smiled, careful not to part her lips, and withdrew, resting her forehead against his back.

* * *

It was not long before the sun rose when they arrived at a derelict castle, high in the mountains and secluded from human contact. The horse had already been stabled and fed and combed, and they had barely entered their home when she pushed him against the wall of the vestibule, her mouth already at his neck. Only now did she part her lips, revealing pearly fangs that disappeared almost immediately into his neck. He held his wife close as she lapped at his neck, one hand at her waist and the other tangled in her hair as he angled his head back, giving her better access. The only thing he said was her name, over and over- Emmeryn, Emmeryn, Emmeryn- more fervently than any of the prayers to the gods he used to say as a Hunter.

When she pulled away, she smiled, red staining her lips and cheeks. “I love you, Niles. Thank you,” she said, leaning in for a kiss. He mumbled the response back into her mouth, a whispered “I love you too.” He could taste his blood in the kiss. They broke apart after a few moments, and he regarded her with a smirk. 

“You made a mess of yourself again,” he says, wiping at her cheek with his thumb.

“It’s your blood, so…” She paused to kiss his cheek, leaving a mark reminiscent of a lipstick stain. “Your mess.”

“Oh, is that so?” She moved away from him, but he stopped her from going too far by taking her hand and lifting it to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the back before leaving more, trailing across her wrist and up her arm as he pulled her back towards him. She laughed as he swept her off her feet, picking her up bridal style, and carried her up the stairs to their room, murmuring something in her ear that would have made her blush if she could.

* * *

Niles was still human. He told her before they were married that, yes, he would turn and stay with her forever, but not yet, not yet. They needed to hide from the Hunter’s Guild, to completely disappear, and they couldn’t do that if humans were going missing as she needed to feed. If he was human, he could give her his blood, and he gladly did so. 

Even so, she worried for him. It was in a very calm way, just as most things she did were, but Niles knew her well enough to tell. It was in the way she sometimes frowned for no reason, in the way she sometimes pulled away from him suddenly after feeding, and in the way she sometimes looked at him, her eyes full of love but tinged with a kind of sadness. He was mortal still, which meant any number of things could befall him at any moment, that he could grow ill, that he could be hurt, or that he could be killed more easily than her. She hesitated to drink too much, terrified of taxing him too greatly. It was at times when he noticed this that he would pull her close and hold her tightly, murmuring assurances that it would only be for a little while longer, and that no harm would befall him in that time. Then she would relax into his arms and close her eyes, that serene, warm smile returning to her face.

One day, he would turn, and after that he knew that one day he would face his fellow Hunters of the Guild and stand by his wife, now their prey instead of their comrade. He had accepted that fate nearly three years ago, when he had cast aside his weapon to take Emmeryn’s outstretched hand. They both knew that, but pushed it from their minds and kept thoughts only for each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More definitely to come! I just couldn't wait to post it anymore slfjlksdjfsdlkf I love them so much~ <3


	2. Evening

Leo’s footsteps echoed in the empty hall, making them sound heavier than they actually were. The low sound was offset by the clinking of the weapons hanging at his belt- silver knives, stakes, and a vial of blessed water.

“Father.” His voice filled the room, overshadowing the creaking of Garon’s chair as he turned to look at his son. “There have been reports of a previously unseen vampire in the south. A woman who rides on a white horse as silent as the grave.”

“And why do you bother me about it? Send Hunters out to investigate. You know what to do.” Garon settled back into his chair, closing his eyes. In his old age, he spent more time resting than doing active Guild work. Leo could still remember when he was younger and led hunts himself, but those days were long gone now. He had led the Guild for most of his life, and Leo figured he deserved the time to rest.

He shifted the weight of the tome in his hand as he spoke. “I ask because I want permission to pursue this vampire myself.”

“Why the sudden interest?”

“She is traveling with a man. A man who matches Niles’ description.”

Garon snorted. “Again with this. If you still believe he is alive, you are a fool.”

“I cannot believe that he is, but I can hope. Do I have your permission to go?”

“Run your fool’s errand, if you wish. Be sure to kill the vampire. Do not let it entirely be a waste.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

Leo turned and left, his footsteps echoing as before. The holy water at his waist glinted in the light of the setting sun as he passed by each window, flashing as he walked through each slice of light. He would leave tonight.

* * *

Niles always woke first, usually shortly before the sun set. He sometimes rose, carefully and gently disentangling himself from his wife’s embrace, to go outside and watch the sunset. It was a view that he knew he could not enjoy much longer, and while he had never been quite taken with sunsets throughout his life, they suddenly seemed stunning now.

This evening, however, he chose the option he nonetheless preferred, which was staying in bed until she woke. Sleeping next to her was different than sleeping next to a human partner, and he had to admit that for the first few months he found it discomfiting. She did not breathe, nor did she have any body warmth to share. He was quite literally sleeping with a corpse in his arms, but over the years he had grown used to it. It was calm and quiet at these times of the day, but a peaceful, comfortable quiet. Waiting for her to wake, which she would not do until the sun fully set, as if something in her instinctively knew when the danger had passed, he held her tightly and softly kissed her forehead until then, with the only light in the room coming from a few candles he lit by the bed. It was a challenge, at first, to adjust his sleeping schedule, but he wouldn’t change it for the world. 

When she woke, it was slowly, and she smiled when she saw her husband. He was always awake before her, and that consistency comforted her. He was always so warm, so very warm, and she would be lying if she denied that she would miss that warmth once he turned. Besides being a reassurance that he was still alive and still with her, she had grown used to it and found it comfortable and soothing.

There was almost always a good morning kiss and playful flirting, as if they were lovers just newly coupled, but sometimes there was silence, and both felt good. They took their time in rising together, and dressing as well. This was only partially out of the natural slowness that came shortly after waking, and partially due to a lack of keeping their hands to themselves as they helped each other dress. This morning followed the usual course as well.

Niles always ate alone in the evening, for Emmeryn had no need to. They enjoyed their time together, but the moments alone were just as precious. They both needed space and time to think. They would come together again when they were done, and spend the night as they usually did, repairing the castle and sorting through old belongings.

This had once been the home of Emmeryn's family, and had been well taken care of for hundreds of years by successive generations of vampires. However, it had fallen into complete disrepair over the past fifty years or so as they had all been slowly hunted, one by one. Emmeryn had fled the family home shortly before it was blessed by the Hunters to prevent vampires from ever entering those walls again. 

After years of wandering and being unsuccessfully hunted, Niles had been sent after her. However, instead of hunting her, he had helped her. He was able to de-purify the castle for her, using an ancient ritual rarely known among the Guild and even more rarely used. Leo had taught it to him long ago, but never had he dreamed that he would use it to help a vampire. It was a technique saved for laying traps, as opposed to lifting them.

Today they were in one of the many rooms on the ground floor, one that Emmeryn couldn’t even remember the proper name of. Like most of the rooms in the castle, it was in ruins, anything of value had already been stolen, and anything not stolen had been ransacked.

They talked as they worked, clearing away wreckage and sifting through trash to find anything worth saving. Over the years they had worked, they had found a surprising amount worth keeping that they had moved to the inhabitable rooms, but overall there was nothing. Still, the time was nice, as Emmeryn told him stories of her life growing up there, and Niles told her stories of the places he had been with Leo- he didn’t like to talk much about his life before joining the Guild. Sometimes they would talk about nothing in particular, or Emmeryn would start explaining things she had been taught long ago, things that Niles never had the chance to learn growing up on the streets, and sometimes they sat in comfortable silence, saying nothing at all but not needing words to enjoy each other’s company. 

“Niles… Niles, come look at this.” She kept a fairly even tone most of the time, but Niles had learned to recognize the glimpses of more emotion in the lilt of her words. She had probably found something pertaining directly to her family, judging by how excited she sounded.

“What is it?” He climbed over a few collapsed beams to where she was sitting in front of a box filled with yellowed parchment.

“Something of my grandmother’s... This is her writing.”

Emmeryn had long ago told him about her family, back when they first met. She had lost her parents, Sulla and Ilia, to hunters when she was still young and had mostly been raised by her grandparents, Marth and Caeda. From what he knew of her parents, her grandparents had been infinitely preferable.

“What sort of writing?” Caeda had been rather prolific, writing anything from fiction to philosophical treatises to pages upon pages of witticisms, and they could never guess what they would find next.

“It looks to be…” She shuffled through a few pages, a small frown of concentration crossing her features. Niles thought it was cute. “Letters, but I don’t know this language.” That was unfortunately the case with many documents and books they found, seeing as her grandparents, having lived well over a thousand years, knew many more languages than she did. She looked up to see him smiling. “What?”

“I just love you. That’s all.”

She smiled and laughed before leaning over to kiss his cheek. “I love you too. Would you take these to the dining room, dear?”

“Of course.” He took the box when she passed it to him and left, taking the usual winding path through servants’ hallways and a few secret passages. It was the only way to get to and from the wing they were working in and the dining room without going through the main entrance hall, somewhere Emmeryn had only been in once since returning to her home. Out of respect for her wishes, Niles had only been in there twice, once with her, and once again to check for any belongings left behind. Her brother’s remains were in there, a gray pile of dust that he was sure had been scattered even more than when he last saw it, and so the room was left entirely undisturbed. There were three other rooms given the same treatment.

The dining room was large, and largely restored to its former glory, but it wasn’t being used for its original purpose. It was more of a storeroom than anything now. The box he was carrying joined countless others on the table, ready for them to go through another time. 

Before leaving, he turned around, leaning against the table, to glance over the portraits hanging on the walls of her and her family. They had all been recovered from various places around the castle, and even if the dining room hadn’t been the original spot for them, she wanted them somewhere where they would be seen often. All had been done by the same artist, a priest of Naga by the name of Libra that Chrom had been “quite taken with,” as Emmeryn liked to put it. Looking at them sometimes made him feel rather small and almost as if he was intruding in their home, but he looked anyways. He wanted to commit to memory the faces that had been- and still were- so important to her, and anyways, as she liked to remind him, they were his family too now, and she was sure that they would have loved him. He wasn’t so sure, considering his past as a Hunter, and the way just looking at them would sometimes remind him of the rich, careless people he so detested. They seemed different, though. Their eyes were kinder, and if Emmeryn was anything to judge by, maybe they would have gotten along after all.

Sighing, he stood and returned to his wife. He never did like to dwell on the past much, at least, not his. Hers, even though it was significantly more pleasant, left the same sick feeling in his stomach when he remembered its tragic end. She had lost everything because of the Hunters’ Guild, but the Guild had saved his life. It was a painful and uncomfortable contrast, to say the least, but it always hung in the back of his mind when he saw her family’s faces.

Emmeryn, to his surprise, met him in the doorway, carrying a chest. “There’s nothing else left in that room,” she explained as she set it down. “I thought we could work in here for a while.”

“Alright.” He gestured back to the table. “We’ve got papers, papers, and more papers. Now, we could do this the boring way or the interesting way…”

Laughing, she shook her head. “We’ll do whatever way gets the most done.”

“You don’t even know all the details, love.” He slid an arm around her and kissed her cheek. “How can you decide?”

“Because I can imagine them well enough.”

“So you’ve thought about it? Naughty,” he smirked. She was laughing again as she tugged slightly on his shirt, right below the collar, a sign that they had long ago established as asking for a kiss, which he gladly gave.

When they broke apart, she leaned her head against his, and they simply enjoyed the comfortable silence for a moment before she spoke, her voice much flatter. “It’s so quiet.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“It’s quiet when I’m not with you, is what I meant. After you left… it was deafening. I used to hear them, all the time, even when they were being quiet. I could hear them.” This wasn’t the first time she had brought this up. It bothered her constantly, he knew, and it was only in a few rare moments that she could find peace when by herself. Still, she tried, and it was important to her to try. “Maybe one day… this castle could have a family in it again.” She smiled wistfully, but her expression quickly grew somber.

“One day, yes. But... maybe we can wait five hundred years or so for that? We’ve got all the time in the world.” They had talked about children before. Emmeryn wanted a family sooner than later, but knew they had to wait until he was turned. Niles was fairly neutral on the matter, and had honestly figured that any children he had wouldn’t be intentional anyways, but he liked to joke about how long they could postpone it, throwing out more and more ridiculous numbers and making her laugh. He loved her laugh. He didn’t earn the laugh he was expecting.

“We have to wait until it’s safe.” The same thoughts that had been on his mind earlier were on hers as well. “Before the Guild, we… we were fine. We could live in peace. We didn’t have to worry that we’d have to raise a child in hiding.” She stared up at the portraits of her family lining the walls. “But now, with the Guild’s Hunters everywhere… all of that is gone now.” He hugged her from behind, kissing her cheek and resting his head on her shoulder, his gaze directed upwards with hers. Placing her hands over his, she hesitated before continuing. “I wish…”

“I know,” he murmured. “I know.”

Their situation was complicated, and no amount of wishing would make it easier, it seemed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Broke: Emmeryn dies  
Woke: Everyone but Emmeryn dies


	3. Downpour

The morning was miserable for Leo.

After briefly saying farewell to his siblings, he had left late in the night to ride south, hoping to make it to the first town, change horses at the Guild outpost there by daybreak, and then continue riding until nightfall, when he should reach the next village. Things had gone according to plan, schedule-wise, but shortly after dawn broke, it started raining. Leo hated being out in the sun- a trait that had made some members of the Guild jokingly call him a vampire- but he hated the rain more, at least when he had to travel in it. As the storm gave no sign of letting up, he turned around and went back to the town, frustrated and cold and wet.

The ride south was supposed to only take three days, at most. This morning’s delay meant he had lost precious time already. As he sat in the outpost’s hall, staring out the window, he impatiently drummed his fingers on the tabletop. The reports he’d read had been gnawing at him ever since, and he wanted answers. Was Niles really alive? And if so, would he still be when Leo got there?

* * *

Niles and Emmeryn went to bed as the sun rose, obscured behind gray clouds ready to burst with rain at any moment. Emmeryn fell asleep almost immediately, as she almost always did, and Niles slowly and carefully extracted himself from his wife’s embrace. He already knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. There was too much on his mind.

In the dining room, he pulled open the curtains, flooding the room with a cold light that probably hadn’t touched these walls in centuries. Part of him almost expected everything to turn to dust, for the last vestiges of the castle’s previous inhabitants to die along with them, but it didn’t. Everything remained still.

He sat at the table, opening the closest box and pulling out a stack of parchment as the first droplets of rain started hitting the window, tapping insistently as if asking to be let in. They had decided to sort any papers they found by type and, if possible, by author. Letters, fables, theses, poetry, diaries, and all other sorts of writing were present in their collection, some as recent as only a century old, and others well over a thousand years old, preserved perfectly by magic. Emmeryn estimated that they hadn’t even found a third of what her family had hidden throughout the castle after news of the Guild’s hunts had spread, and they had already filled well over half of the dining room.

Niles spent an hour or two sorting, skimming through the contents of each document only enough to tell what it was, if he could even read it (they had another pile for things in different languages that neither of them could read). He figured that he would have centuries to peruse them with Emmeryn, if he liked. If they didn’t die first. If the Guild didn’t show up at their doorstep to hunt them like animals and well and truly seal this castle’s fate as a graveyard.

He had never doubted the integrity and necessity of the Guild’s work until he met her. To be honest, he hadn’t really cared at the time. All he cared was that for the first time in his life, he had a roof over his head, and food in his belly, and a warm place to sleep. He had done much worse than kill a few vampires just to survive before that.

* * *

The first time Niles met her had been in weather like this, with unrelenting rain and miserable cold. He had been pursuing her for weeks, by order of the Guild, her trail only evident because of the string of weakened and confused (but otherwise unharmed) victims she left behind. The light of the moon peeked through the storm clouds, and so he pressed on in the gloom, searching for her.

He found her on the road, slogging through the mud, weighed down by her heavy cloak and the beginnings of starvation. She hadn’t eaten in about a week, he judged by the lack of villagers saying they’d been visited by a shadowy figure in the night, and a week without blood could be near-fatal to a vampire. Her feeding patterns were unusual, to say the least. 

She had stopped in the middle of the muddy road by the time he approached, and he prepared himself for confrontation, expecting her to turn around at any moment. However, as he watched, she fell to her knees and stayed there, staring down the road ahead. Drawing his bow, he circled slowly towards her front, ready to fire at any moment and pierce her heart with the silver tip of his arrow. She barely moved, only allowing her lips any motion as she mumbled something he couldn’t hear.

“On your knees for me already?” Another odd thing. He had never seen a vampire give up so easily. This had to be a trap. “Speak up.” 

“Make it quick. Please.”

“What?”

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” She looked up at him for the briefest of moments, but he couldn’t see her face, obscured partially by her hood and partially by the rain. “Please… just make it quick.”

That struck a chord with him, making him pause. It hadn’t been that long since he had knelt before Leo, begging for the same thing. A quick death. He remembered the way Leo had looked down at him, his fingertips drumming against the cover of his tome as he considered. 

Niles drew his bow back a little further.

Leo had set aside the tome and offered his hand. Not out of an act of charity or goodwill, he clarified, but out of curiosity. No one had ever begged him for death before. Leo’s curiosity had saved Niles’ life. 

It felt like an eternity of stillness, with the falling rain being the only indicator that time was indeed marching on. When she finally looked up, his weapons were gone and he was offering his hand. “Why?” she asked. She sounded disappointed.

“Because I want to know why,” he replied. “Do you plan to stay there all night?”

Wordlessly, she reached up and took his hand.

* * *

They found a cave nearby, empty save for a few old bones and deep enough into the mountainside that it was dry. Halfway there, she had collapsed, and he’d been forced to carry her the rest of the way. After setting her down, he built a fire and offered her dry clothes to change into, a gesture that left her speechless, before peeling off his own sopping wet clothes and changing into another set of dry clothes from his pack. 

They spread the soggy clothing around the cave and then themselves, with him sitting on the side of the fire closest to the entrance, guarding against any escape, and her lying on the opposite side, curled up under a blanket. Fire was one of the many weaknesses of vampires, and yet she stayed so close to it, a moth drawn to a flame. At first he thought she was just a vampire with strange habits, but now he was starting to think she might be more suicidal than odd. Why else would she deprive herself of blood, not fight him, and even sleep so close to something so fatal? Even so, he wasn’t sure. The Guild didn’t exactly make a habit of studying vampires beyond ways they could kill them, no matter whether their behavior was abnormal or not.

Whether she was asleep or simply unconscious he couldn’t tell, but either way, if she went much longer without blood, his job would be done without him even having to lift a finger. That wouldn’t get him the answers he wanted.

From what he’d seen and heard, she never killed her victims, and never drained them to the point where they’d feel more than a little weak. He wondered if she’d do the same with him, and so he rolled up his sleeve and held his wrist out near her face. “Hey. Wake up.” She stirred after a few moments and opened her eyes, blinking weakly a few times. She made no sound nor move beyond that. “You’re thirsty, aren’t you? Take a drink.”

She shook her head, the motion slow and labored. “I… can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t? I know you’re dying for a taste.” He lowered his arm closer, and she inhaled deeply, nearly overpowered by the scent of blood beneath his skin.

“A trap… it has to be.”

“I promise you that it isn’t. I didn’t smear holy water or anything onto my arm, but I could, if you’re into that,” he smirked, then grew somber. “I just want to talk, and I can’t do that if you’re unconscious. I promise I’m not trying to hurt you.” There was a moment of hesitation, and then, in a single motion almost faster than he could see, she grabbed his arm and bit down, drinking as if she’d never have her fill. “Ow… I like it rough, but that hurts.” She didn’t seem to hear him.

Suddenly, much sooner than he expected, she dropped his arm and closed her eyes. “Is that it?” he asked, but didn’t receive an answer. He felt a bit weak and lightheaded, but that was it. After waiting a minute or two to see if she’d move again, he cleaned and dressed the wound, then laid down to sleep through the day. Hopefully she would talk in the evening.

* * *

When afternoon came, she was already awake, curled up in a corner of the cave, her knees drawn up to her chest and her chin resting on them. She had changed back into her own clothes and neatly folded his, leaving them to sit by his pack. The rain had stopped, letting sunlight warm the outside world, and the fire had almost entirely died down. “Good afternoon.” She didn’t respond.

His stomach growled, and he searched in his pack for something to eat. Nothing. That meant he had to hunt, and to hunt, he’d have to leave the cave. There was still daylight, so he wouldn’t have to worry about her escaping, but he realized he might have to worry about a few other things as he followed her gaze to his pack, and more specifically, the vial of holy water hanging from it, glinting in the sunlight. He didn’t like the way she was looking at it.

“It’s too late for holy water now,” he said, unhooking the vial from his pack and uncorking it. “I won’t let you do that.” He poured it out near the entrance of the cave, the water shining in the sunlight before it absorbed into the earth. Dropping her head, she looked away and curled up more tightly.

His stomach growled again, and he nearly got up to leave before stopping himself. If she wanted, she could just walk out into the sunlight and turn to dust. Whether or not she would was another matter entirely, but he didn’t know the answer, and so he sat and waited for the sun to set.

Evening came, and they were both silent as he left, bow and arrow in hand. He waited longer than he needed to after catching a rabbit to return, wanting to see what she would do and expecting to find her gone. She wasn’t. The way she was sitting, looking so forlorn, tired, and hungry, brought back unpleasant memories. “I thought you’d leave,” he said, not wanting to dwell on that. “What are you waiting for?”

“For you to kill me. You’re going to, aren’t you?”

“I might. I might not. It seems like that’s what you want, but… I’m honestly not seeing a reason to right now. You’re barely posing a threat to anyone.” He sat down and started skinning the rabbit, watching her reaction. She didn’t seem to be affected by the smell of animal blood like she was by human blood. “Can you drink animal blood?” he asked as he finished, turning to poke at the fire and bring it back to life. It seemed like she was going to be reticent regarding the current topic, so he decided to change the subject.

“It makes us sick,” she replied quietly. “I don’t know why.”

“Interesting.” They were silent again as the fire roared to life, and he started cooking. “Can you eat?”

“There’s no point.”

“But _ can _ you?”

“...I’ve never tried.” She pulled her legs tighter, turning away as he cooked and started eating, only to be surprised by him standing next to her several minutes later, holding out a piece of meat. “Why are you doing this?”

“Maybe it’s just a whim. Maybe it’s because you remind me of someone. Just take it.”

She did and slowly bit into it, making a face as she did. “It tastes… strange.” She held it back out to him. “I don’t think I’m meant to eat.”

“It was worth a try. So.” He sat down across from her, crossing his legs and biting into the piece she had given back to him. “I told you yesterday that I wanted to know why, and I still do. I’ve never seen a vampire that didn’t put up a fight, let alone sat and talked to me. I’ve never heard of a vampire who was so… selective in their feeding, either. So why? Why won’t you fight?”

“I’m a monster, aren’t I? I hurt people just by existing.”

“Well, that’s theoretically why _ I _ was hunting you, but that doesn’t explain _ your _ reasons. I don’t know much about you, but the Guild told me as much as they could. You’re the last survivor of the Lowell family, and I know it’s you because of that mark on your forehead. The last time the Guild knew your whereabouts was over fifty years ago, and you were assumed dead, but that’s obviously not the case. You’ve lived quite a while without detection, probably owing to your feeding habits. I must say, I’m impressed. Am I correct?”

“My family is indeed gone,” she sighed. “They were all hunted and killed. They sacrificed themselves for me… all I do now is siphon off the living, for no other selfish reason than keeping myself alive. And for what? To hurt someone else the next day?”

“So you’re restrained more by remorse than anything… interesting. If you hate this so much, why are you still alive?” That was a question he had asked himself so many times in his past, and one that he hadn’t been sure of the answer to for a long time. Spite for the world, he supposed, had been fueling him for years until he met Leo. It was almost a matter of pride that the world couldn’t kill him, no matter how hard it tried, but this didn’t seem to be the case for her.

“I didn’t want their deaths to be in vain.”

“And yet you gave up now.”

She looked down. “Death is coming for me eventually. I know it is. I see no reason to delay it… every moment I live, another drop of blood must be spilled to sustain me.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You’re free to go, if you want.”

“What?” She looked up, shocked.

“You’re not the dangerous monster the Guild sent me after. You’re not a monster at all. There’s no reason to hunt you.”

“You’re letting me go?” She sounded incredulous. 

“You’re just like the rest of us. Everyone kills to eat. The only difference between us and them,” he said, gesturing to himself and the remains of the rabbit, “is that we take it personal.” He stood, dusting himself off. “The fact that you actually feel remorse about it means you’re a hell of a lot better than most people I know, myself included.” Leo wouldn’t be happy about this, he knew, but… for once, he felt like he was doing the right thing. “Try to stay inconspicuous. I can’t promise the next hunter will be merciful.” He packed up his things and left the cave in silence, feeling her eyes on his back the whole time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh ariana we're really in it now
> 
> Edit: sad to say I've been rly busy and lost the inspiration for this fic... i still want to finish it, but as of now (February 2020) it is on indefinite hiatus. idk if anyone is actually reading this or not but yeah.


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